


this is not a telenovela (it's just a commercial break)

by popoyoy11



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU, DCU (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Bat Family, Idk it's basically a bit of tim worship, Jaytim - Freeform, M/M, Non canon compliant, pre n52
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2016-06-27
Packaged: 2018-07-18 12:17:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7314853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/popoyoy11/pseuds/popoyoy11
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Maybe we should tone down the chatter a bit,” Tim suggests, the slightest hints of desperation in his voice. Jason can see the telltale sign of a twitch in his eye and the stiff set to his jaw sings annoyed.</p><p>In which Jason doesn't understand timing and Tim is an emotionally constipated person.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this is not a telenovela (it's just a commercial break)

**Author's Note:**

> Set about a year after Red Robin and Jason is somehow reintegrated into the family. It's my first time writing a jaytim fic so forgive me if the characterizations are a bit off. Shoutout to [pissedofsandwich](http://archiveofourown.org/users/pissedofsandwich/pseuds/pissedofsandwich) for beta-ing and to Lord for reading my shit. Enjoy!

“Has anyone ever told you it’s rude to stare?”

“Not all of us are the cream of the society y’know, Timmy. Street rat like me wouldn’t know manners at _all_.”

Tim turns his whole body to face him. He tilts his head, with the sunlight streaming in from behind him and the way his hair frames his face, he makes Jason think of renaissance paintings and angels.

Jason should know better. Angels aren’t like this, aren’t like _Tim_.

Angels don’t hide themselves behind smokescreens and deceptions. Behind lies and misdirection

Angels aren’t this cruel.

Tim levels Jason with an unimpressed look.

Angels don’t have this much sass, either.

Jason gives him a shit-eating grin; Tim rolls his eyes and returns to his tablet. He runs a hand through his hair absentmindedly, tucking a stray lock behind his ear. It’s been getting too long; he should remind Tim to cut it.

But Jason kind of likes it like this, gives him something to pull on.

So maybe he won’t.

“It’s shit in the morning, Tim, what the fuck are you doing?” he complains, rolling over to the other side of the bed, closer to the chair Tim is sitting on.

“It’s nine in the morning and I’m working.”

“Working my ass. Wait actually, you should be working on my ass, instead of whatever it is you corporate lackeys do on your little tablets at ungodly hours of the morning.” He gets up, padding over to Tim and peering over his shoulder.

Tim looks offended, “I’m not a corporate _lackey_.”

“Tim.” Jason spins the chair around and hovers above him. Tim looks up from underneath his lashes and Jason feels something stuck in his throat. It’s always going to shock him, how deep the blue goes. There’s something lurking underneath there, something that Jason will never be able to figure out, something that self-deprecates and plans and has fucking daddy issues. Something that saves people unconditionally, something self-sacrificing and beautiful and twisted but still so fucking _good_.

Something that screams quietly into the dark from too many losses and too many cuts.

Something that both terrifies and mesmerizes Jason at the same time. A fire that draws him in like the stupid moth that he is.

His eyes goes over Tim’s torso, noticing the scars that he traced with his mouth last night, the visible bruises on his neck, and down to his boxers, where he knew there would be reds and purples and yellows covering his hips and his thighs. He pays attention to the lean muscles that grace Tim's body. He’s not as big as Jason is, or Dick, for that matter, but still, the kid’s got killer abs.

He still remembers how they taste when he licked the sweat off of them, remembers the way Tim moaned, broken and high, like it _hurt_ —

“Well aren’t you a sight to behold,” Jason murmurs.

He reaches for Tim, hand gently resting on his cheek, reveling in the way Tim leans into his touch. Tim licks his lips (and how is it possible that an action as simple as that can be so _obscene_?), eyes flicking back and forth between Jason’s mouth and eyes, face shifting into something predatory. Jason is reminded again why the kid is another level of dangerous.

Leader of the Teen Titans, adored by the superheroes community. Trained by Lady fucking Shiva. Half the assassins’ community wants to kill him and the other half wants to fuck him. He’s not even nineteen yet and he’s got Ra’s al-Ghul wrapped around his little finger. Jason doesn’t want to know what would happen if he decides to fuck it and switch sides.

(Actually, he does, the aftermath would be so _terrifying_ that by the time Tim is done he would have the whole world under his thumb. Jason looks forward to the day it inevitably happens.)

The only kind of angel this kid can be is a fallen one. Tim is a hurricane veiled underneath layers of faces and problems piled so high it makes _Bruce_ look like a regular Joe. He’s a ticking time bomb and the only person who has the long-range trigger is himself.

Jason, on the other hand, is more of a volcano guy.

Gets the job. Died on the job. Killed a bunch of people. Got better at it. Now ready for the job again. (Not necessarily in that order but hey, who cares? He’s getting laid.)

Now, what do you get when a volcano meets a hurricane?

Complete fucking chaos, that’s what.

When their lips meet it feels like an explosion, it shouldn’t be this exhilarating but it is. It’s better than any free fall Jason’s ever done. Better than slicing a blade through a murderer’s head, better than pushing rapists from rooftops.

It’s the best kind of adrenaline rush there is.

Jason curls his hand on the back of Tim’s neck, licking into his mouth, and the boy makes a keening noise in the back of his throat that goes straight to Jason’s dick. He pushes Jason over, toppling him to the floor and straddling him in one, swift motion. Jason can feel his growing erection through the paper-thin material of his boxers.

“Whoa, somebody’s eager,” Jason smirks.

“Shut up and put your mouth to better use, Jay,” Tim pants out, breathless.

Jason grins at him, all teeth, “As you wish, princess.”

-

Jason can’t decide what they are.

Sometimes there’s the sex. They fuck like they fight; violent, unrelenting and perfect. Sometimes there are nights like this, when Tim is all soft around the edges, legs tangled with Jason’s on the ratty sofa of his safehouse. Looking like a tame lion cub with a popcorn bowl on his lap, watching Star Trek reruns.

They don’t talk about it.

Whatever they are, it’s not committed enough to be a relationship, but it’s too intense to be casual.

Leave it to the Replacement to make everything shades of grey.

“You’ve got your grumpy face on, it’s ruining my zen.” Tim points out, flicking a popcorn onto his face. Being the scarily competent person that he is, it hits Jason straight on the forehead.

Jason snorts, “Zen?” _More like the calm before the fucking storm._ “You don’t have a damn zen cell in your body. Your life is a vicious cycle of paranoia, overly caffeinated coffee, and bitterness, the life in which I have the unfortunate luck of being involved in.”

“Whatever. Your face is all—“ Tim waves his hand around vaguely, really, sometimes it’s hard to believe he’s got an IQ of 142, “—frowny and it’s disturbing my night.”

“If you don’t like my face you’re welcomed to leave, the window is still broken open from the last time you decided to crash into my safehouse like a _heathen_. God forbids any of you bats and birds use actual _doors_ ,” Jason scoffs.

“You know, it’s funny how the one who has the neatest house is also the one who uses guns to destroy other people’s houses on a daily basis.” Tim quips, throwing a popcorn kennel up in the air and scrunching up his nose when he fails to catch it, it’s cute, Jason can’t handle this. “Also, I like your face, so I think I’ll stay,” he finishes, smiling at Jason, eyes too soft in the darkness of the room.

In nights like this, Jason feels like a deer caught in a headlight. Not many people can blindside him but somehow the Rep—Tim always does. What is he supposed to say to that? It’s not a confession but it may as well be. Jason isn’t—complete, isn’t what Tim wants out of a partner, isn’t what anybody wants out of a partner.

Jason isn’t lovable.

He swallows; the words are stuck in his throat.

“Okay.” He shrugs, plays at nonchalant.

It’s not quite an answer, but it’s warm and it’s nice and Tim is here, making Jason feel like he can be whole again, so Jason doesn’t think, just pushes it out of his mind and basks in this, whatever _this_ is.

It’s nice. He can get used to this.

-

“Y’know, Replacement, I’ve been thinking.”

Tim dodges a bullet and goes flying in the air, kicking two guys down, leaving Jason to deal with the other four.

“About?” Tim replies, sends another goon careening into a trash can.

“About, about y’know, life and shit.”

“Life and shit,” Tim repeats, “is this really the time to be having this conversation?”

“Hell yeah, mid-battle is the best time to have a deep heart-to-heart, how do you think I got The Talk? Sitting somewhere nice and comfy with the big bad Bat showing charts like you did?” Jason does a backflip, dodging a shower of bullets. He kicks two of the goons’ guns away and judo flips one of them. The other one reaches for his gun but Jason is faster, throwing a knife onto his hand and knocking him out with one jab to his ribs.

Tim does a complicated kick-turn that somehow ends them in a back-to-back position, thugs surrounding them in a semi-circle. And even though Jason can’t see his face, he knows the Replacement is making that half-horrified, half-pained, half-amused, half- _something else_ face (yes, Jason is aware that four halfs make a two, he doesn’t care, fuck basic math) that’s kind of the default expression he has around Jason.

“Red Hood,” he says, bo staff whistling around him and sweeping the legs from underneath his opponents.

“Red Robin,” Jason sneers. He continues, “So I noticed that you’ve been spending a lot of time at my safehouses lately.”

Tim grunts out a reply.

“Not just any safehouse, but specifically the ones that has me in it. And we’ve been doing the nasty,” Tim lets out a pained noise of indignation, Jason would have been worried but then he hears a muffled scream and he figures that Tim is fine.

“Die, Hood!” One of the goons comes charging at Jason with an axe. Tim swings his staff around and hits his solar plexus with it. Jason winces, that have got to hurt like a bitch.

“Shut the fuck up, Gerald! Can’t you see we’re trying to have a deep conversation here?” Jason yells, punching a guy in the kidney.

“Maybe we _should_ tone down the chatter a bit,” Tim suggests, the slightest hints of desperation in his voice. Jason can see the telltale sign of a twitch in his eye and the stiff set to his jaw sings _annoyed_.

Jason grins. "Nah, it’s fine; these guys used to work for me, they’ll forget what I tell them to forget."

He nods to the remaining goons. "Right guys?” they hesitate, various weapons held up in the air.

“ _Right guys_?” Jason asks again, putting all of his Red Hood voice into effect, they immediately start nodding. “Good boys,” he croons. Then he kicks a guy who tries to get up in the stomach. Seriously, don’t these idiots ever learn their lesson? When facing the Red Hood and Red Robin together, once you get hit, _you stay the fuck down_.

“As I was saying, we’ve been doing a _lot_ of the nasty. Actually, we’ve been doing a lot of other things too.” Jason punches a guy in the throat. “Really domestic shit that would usually get me running for the hills, but somehow with you, it’s kind of cool, I guess,” he sends another one to the afterlife with a bullet, “and well, you gotta make an honest man out of me babybird, you know how much I _hate_ sneaking around. So tell me, are we going steady?”

Tim doesn’t reply, Jason turns to look at him and the kid is breaking a man’s leg in three different places.

And they say _Jason_ overdoes things.

Jason sees a guy running away and shoots him in the back of his knee; the guy screams and goes down flailing. “I’ll let that thought stew in your head for a while.”

When they’ve brought down the last of these idiots (it was two against seventeen, basically a walk in the park. It took them like, five minutes), zip tied and everything, Tim, like the real bat that he is—emotional constipation included—takes off without another word.

Jason sighs, removes his helmet and runs a hand over his hair.

“Good talk, birdboy,” he hollers.

-

“Todd! I demand to know what the hell is going on.” Damian barges in just as Jason is draining his pasta.

He makes a face, “What? Please tell me you don’t use that kind of language around Dick. He’d wash _my_ mouth with soap because he would somehow know that you picked up all that swearing from me.” Jason cringes at the mental image of Dick in all his discowing glory chasing him around Gotham with a bar of soap, he almost chops his finger off thinking about it.

Jason isn’t scared of Dick, he’s scared of the patented disappointed-big-brother look Dick has for him. It makes his cold, dead, prune of a heart slightly quiver in sympathy.

Damian ignores his question, climbing onto a stool instead and jabbing a finger at his direction. “Drake hasn’t left his room in a month. I demand to know how you do it,” the small demon asks him, fingers tapping impatiently on the kitchen counter.

“Huh,” Jason frowns, now that’s something. “Set the table, won’t you, little bat.”

Damian grumbles about menial jobs that are not suited for an assassin like him but does it anyway. He heads over to the cupboard where Jason keeps all his plates and cutlery while Jason pays attention to his chicken. “How do you know babybird hasn’t bailed and left town yet?” he asks.

The brat stops his movement, face concentrated in thought. “I suppose you’re right,” he says, “either way, it’s quite a pleasant situation and I’d much prefer it this way.”

Damian would prefer if Tim was permanently _nonexistent_ , but Jason doesn’t say that, because he’s a good brother and it’s time for their bimonthly dinner date (which Dick also doesn’t know about because he’d have kittens over Jason _corrupting_ his Robin, or something. Please, as if Damian can be more corrupted than he already is).

The two of them bond over having been dead and wonderfully effective weapons that aren’t allowed in the bat armory because they might kill someone. Or give a certain growing brat ideas.

The blood thirst in the littlest bat of them all makes Jason proud, it’s the only reason he puts up with Damian, really.

Jason sets a plate of cooked chicken and a bowl of macaroni salad on the kitchen table, sitting next to Damian instead of across him. He doesn’t know why but they’re both more comfortable this way, close and sharing each other’s space and body heat.

Something about graves and growing up wrong, he thinks.

“Also, how do you know that I’m the reason Replacement’s been reenacting the ghost of the Christmas past lately? For all we know, he could be having another spat with Goldie, or you.”

Damian does that glare-thing with his face where he doesn’t know if Jason is mocking him or if he’s really asking a genuine question. It’s quite intense; then again, everything the brat does is either angry and/or intense.

Jason raises an eyebrow, scooping food into their respective plates.

Damian mimics his expression. “It’s not Father because at this point anything Father does wouldn’t impress Drake anymore,” he holds up a finger, counting, “it’s not Grayson either because he came to the cave yesterday asking about Drake’s whereabouts, and it’s not me because I have been following Grayson’s suggestions about lessening my attempts to patronize Drake’s pathetic hide,” the preteen lists off.

“And you automatically came to the conclusion that it’s me?” Jason gasped, clutching his chest dramatically. “You wound me. I don’t know whether to be flattered or offended right now.”

Damian waves him off. “Drake only gets like this when you’re involved.” he stabs at his food with the grace of a prince, shoving some of it into his mouth. “What is this?”

“Chicken,” Jason answers, Damian’s words echoing in his brain.

_Drake only gets like this when you’re involved._

Huh.

Damian hums, “It’s not half as bad as that abomination you made last time.”

Jason points his fork at him, flinging some lettuce his way in the process; Damian lets out a disgusted ‘ugh’.

“Fuck you, demon brat; my lasagna is the best.”

-

The next time Jason meets Tim, he’s got his staff pointed at Jason’s throat, his legs (which Jason will spend lifetimes making odes to) straddling his chest.

“Good to see you too, babybird,” he drawls out, arms pinned uselessly to his side underneath Tim’s weight.

Tim doesn’t say anything, just stares at him with his cowl on, the whites of it boring holes onto Jason’s domino.

Suddenly his whole body slumps and he lets out a defeated sigh. Jason goes on a mental list in his head; he doesn’t feel like he’s done anything that warrants a surprise attack from Red Robin.

Then again, Jason’s done a lot of things the month and a half Tim wasn’t here.

(Some of which includes multiple explosions that may have been an overkill. But he was pissed, okay. Six fucking weeks and no words at all, Tim should be grateful Jason’s not wringing his neck right now.)

“We are,” Tim suddenly says, alert again.

“I’m sorry?” Jason asks, confused.

Tim leans down, plants a quick one on him then huffs, crossing his arms, chin jutting out defiantly, “We _are_.”

He gets off Jason in a blur of red and capes and is gone by the time Jason is able to get his body to function again.

Jason stares at his hands, then at his feet, then at the spot where the Replacement was seconds ago. His eyes widen as the gears click into place and the meaning of what Tim said registers into his brain.

“What the fuck.” Jason thumps his head back into the concrete roof, he doesn’t know what just happened; Tim is such a cryptic little asshole.

-

Later that night (morning?), after he’s done with patrol, Jason sits on the ratty sofa of his safehouse (a different one from one and a half month ago because _hello_ , just because he’s willing to help out the bat brood once in a while doesn’t mean he trusts them enough to let them know where he lives), nursing a bottle of beer.

The TV is on, playing some kind of telenovela, but he’s not watching it, his mind keeps replaying the scene from earlier. He stares at the screen in front of him, contemplating whether he should go back out looking for the little shit or not.

Turns out he doesn’t need to, because five minutes later he hears the familiar rattle of his window lock being picked.

Jason waits for a pair of beaten up sneakers to enter his view. When they do, he says nothing, just follows Tim with his eyes. Replacement is wearing a flannel shirt over a print t-shirt and a pair of the skimpiest jeans Jason had ever seen. Complete with the glasses he looks like a fucking _hipster_.

Jason wants to say something, anything. The silence doesn't feel like him, where are his stupid jokes and crude banters now? Good timing to go silent, brain. Jason sighs and tosses his beer to the trash can. He might as well wait and let the Replacement make the first move. Forgiveness has to be earned and all that.

Tim doesn’t look at him; he chucks his shoes near the door. Then he enters Jason’s room and emerges in one of his old t-shirts and nothing else, bringing a quilt with him.

Jason’s brain short-circuits.

The shirt is too big on Tim, it barely reaches his _thighs._

Jesus fucking _Christ._

Tim stands in front of Jason; who raises an eyebrow at him. “Well?”

Tim smiles sheepishly, the little fucker, he _has_ to know how much effect he has on Jason.

Tim starts and makes himself comfortable in Jason’s lap. Jason stiffens, it takes every ounce of control in his body to not start ripping that highly offensive shirt right there and then. Tim drapes the quilt over them both and nuzzles Jason’s neck. Jason doesn’t even realize how much he’s missed having Tim near him, his arms automatically goes around Tim’s skinny hips. Relishing how warm and right Tim feels.

“I don’t really feel bad considering it was your fault anyway. Suddenly springing stuff like that in the middle of a _gang war_ , seriously?” Tim starts. “But it was kind of— _maybe_ —wrong for me to completely going under the radar for so long. You’d be surprised at how experienced the Kents are with brooding bats and birds,” he exhales contently, his breath hitting Jason’s skin with every word.

“So uh.” Tim lifts his head and looks at him, a hesitant smile on his lips. “I’m sorry?” he finishes meekly.

Jason closes his eyes, resisting the urge to punch something. He brings his hand up and cups Tim’s cheek, giving him a chaste kiss on the lips.

“Fuck you _so_ much,” Jason sighs.

-

“You are such an asshole,” Jason mumbles into Tim’s hair. Their bodies sticking together with sweat and other bodily fluids, their skin still hot after the fantastic rounds of make-up sex they just had.

Tim pats his chest, well more like flops his hand onto Jason’s chest and letting it stay there. “I know,” he mutters.

“Good thing I don’t mind or I’d dump your ass before we even get to tell the rest of the bats.” Jason rakes his fingers through Tim’s smooth-as-silk hair. Seriously, the amount of money that WE spends to keep this boy pretty must be huge.

Tim groans, “Do we have to?”

“Well not really, but sooner or later they’re going to find out, and I want to know when to skip town so I can avoid my boyfriend’s overly protective bunch raining hell fire down on me.”

Tim looks at him and raises a single eyebrow, “How do you know it won’t be the other way around?”

-

Damian stares at his phone. The text reads;

_can’t do monday, got rly important date_

Ten seconds later his phone vibrates again, alerting him to a new message.

_wednesday okay for u_

Damian types back a quick reply and tosses the phone onto his bed.

“Who was that?” Dick asks, head poking in from the doorway.

Damian shrugs, “Nobody.”

“Okay?” Dick gives him a hesitant smile, “Then why do you look happy?”

“Happy?” Damian huffs. He gets up, walking past his older brother to the batcave. “I’m not happy. Relieved, perhaps, knowing that Drake would spend less of his time at the Manor.”

“What?” Dick blanches. “What? Damian, hold up,” he calls out, scrambling after Damian.

Damian tsked. “Don’t be slow, Grayson. We’re going to be late for patrol. I don’t want to catch Todd and Drake making out on one of the rooftops.”

Dick visibly tenses, if he could, Damian bets he would start spewing fire out of his ears and nose. Dick’s shriek echoes throughout the whole manor and travels all the way to Gotham.

“They’re doing what?!”

Tt. Always so dramatic.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. Don't forget to comment! Your words mean the world to me ;)
> 
> Visit me on my [tumblr](http://p-p-poy.tumblr.com/)  
> or check out my [DC sideblog](http://sneakytimmytime.tumblr.com/)


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